From Final Fantasy XIV to Aliens vs. Predator - News Roundup 18th December

In today's news roundup we hear the Square Enix is now accepting applications for Final Fantasy XIV's beta testing, Bioware explain their reasons for not bringing Mass Effect 2 to the PS3, and Sega wins its appeal against the Australian Classification Board allowing Aliens vs. Predator to be released with no cuts made.

Final Fantasy XIV Now Recruiting Beta Testers

Square Enix's second foray into massively multiplayer online roleplaying is due for global release next year for PS3 and PC, and avid RPGers will be pleased to know that the FFXIV beta programme for Windows went live this week. Hit the link to nip over to the official site and sign up to check out what promises to be one of the major events of next year's gaming calendar. You'll be testing out the game for the usual bugs, glitches and gameplay balance, no previous MMO experience is required, and the applications will be sorted out by content as opposed to submission order. [Wired]

No Mass Effect 2 For The PS3

To put an end to the multitude of rumours circulating around the Web regarding the possibility of Mass Effect 2 appearing on the PS3, the game's producer Adrien Cho has categorically stated in interview that this will not be the case, going on to outline Bioware's decisions for this move.

"We started Mass Effect on Xbox 360 - it was our lead development platform," said Cho. It made sense for us, we built all of our tools around that and again we're leveraging all of that experience working with the 360 and Unreal technology...it just made sense to continue working on that for the sequel."

The producer also hinted at DLC ranging from new weapons and armour to full mission-packs, and didn't rule out the idea of implementing a follow-up strategy similar to that seen in GTA IV. Finally, he suggested that there would be a digital distribution service for PC owners, but was not yet at liberty to say which. [CVG]

AVP Ban Overturned Down Under

Australian gamers can rejoice, for once, as SEGA Australia confirmed that not only will Aliens vs. Predator be seeing an Autralian release, but that it will receive a MA15+ certificate and be unmolested by the censors with no game content edited or cut. Managing Director Darren Macbeth had this to say about the hard-fought victory:

"It is with great pleasure that we announce the success of our appeal. We are particularly proud that the game will be released in its original entirety, with no content altered or removed whatsoever. This is a big win for Australian gamers. We applaud the Classification Review Board on making a decision that clearly considers the context of the game, and is in line with the modern expectations of reasonable Australians."

The game was refused classification at the beginning of December, at which point SEGA made noises about pulling the game entirely as they'd already planned to do in Germany. Thankfully, now though, the situation has reached a happy conclusion.

Still sucks for poor old Valve and every would-be Aussie zombie slayer, though. [IGN]